Author: claimsbot

In the claims:

1. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly for a water sprinkler irrigation system comprising:
a valve housing having a tubular body portion having a vertically extending Y-axis, a top end, a bottom end, an outer surface and an inner surface; a vertically oriented elongated shaft member having a Y-axis, a top end, a bottom end, an outer surface and a bore hole extending from said top end to said bottom end; fixed support means connecting said inner surface of said tubular body portion to said outer surface of said shaft member to form a unitary structure;
a valve member having a vertically oriented tubular sleeve having a Y-axis, a top end, a bottom end, an outer surface and a vertical bore hole having an inner surface; a disc portion having a top surface, an outer edge, a bottom surface, a bore hole having a Y-axis and said top surface of said disc portion is connected to said bottom end of said tubular sleeve;
said shaft member of said valve housing being telescopically received in said bore hole of said tubular sleeve of said valve member;
spring means biasing said valve member away from said valve housing; and
means for restricting the distance that said valve member may be biased away from said valve housing.
2. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 1 wherein said means for restricting the distance that said valve member may be biased away from said valve housing is a push nut that is pressed onto the bottom end of said shaft member of said valve housing; said push nut having a top surface against which said bottom surface of said disc portion of said valve member would be downwardly biased.
3. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 1 wherein said spring means is a coil spring having a top end and a bottom end and a plurality of helical loops that surround said shaft member of said valve housing in a spaced relationship.
4. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 3 wherein said top end of said coil spring presses against said fixed support means that connects said inner surface of said tubular body portion of said valve housing to said outer surface of said shaft member of said valve housing.
5. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 3 wherein said helical loop of said top end of said coil spring has a larger diameter than said helical loop of said bottom end to give said coil spring an inverted conical configuration.
6. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 3 wherein said coil spring is made of metal material.
7. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 1 wherein said outer surface of said tubular body portion of said valve housing has a helically threaded surface so that said valve housing can be threaded into the internally threaded upstanding tubular sleeve of an inverted T-shaped coupling member.
8. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 1 wherein said fixed support means comprises a plurality of rib members.
9. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 1 further comprising a plurality of brace members extending upwardly from said top surface of said valve member; said brace members having an inner edge connected to said tubular sleeve; said brace members having a bottom edge connected to said top surface of said disc portion of said valve member; said brace members also having an outer edge and a top edge.
10. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 9 wherein said inner surface of said tubular portion of said valve housing has a plurality of vertically oriented alignment grooves that receive said outer edges of said respective brace members to provide reciprocal tracking means for the upward and downward travel of said valve member.
11. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 1 in combination with a PVC T-shaped pipe coupling member with internally threaded sleeves.
12. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 1 further comprising attachment means connected to said top end of said tubular body portion of said valve housing for gripping the interior wall of a tubular member that would be connected to said top end of said valve housing.
13. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 12 wherein said attachment means comprises a plurality of spring fingers.
14. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 12 further comprising locking means for securing said attachment means in the interior of a tubular member that would be connected to said top end of said valve housing.
15. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 14 wherein said locking means comprises a plurality of locking springs each having a top end and a bottom end; compartments for capturing said bottom ends of said locking springs are formed on said inner surface of said tubular portion of said valve housing.
16. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 15 wherein said compartments are each formed by a pair of laterally spaced wedging members that extend inwardly from said inner surface of said tubular body portion of said valve housing.
17. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 1 further comprising a plurality of extraction tool sockets formed in said top end of said tubular body portion of said valve housing.
18. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 12 in combination with a metal T-shaped pipe coupling member having internally threaded sleeves.
19. An anti-geyser shut-off valve assembly as recited in claim 12 in combination with a PVC T-shaped pipe coupling member whose inner surfaces are smooth and lacking internal threads.

The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.

1. (canceled)
2. (canceled)
3. (canceled)
4. (canceled)
5. (canceled)
6. (canceled)
7. (canceled)
8. A composite comprising:
(i) 30 to 98.995 weight percent polypropylene base resin;
(ii) 1 to 70 weight percent dispersed component which is a polymer incompatible with said polypropylene base resin selected from the group consisting of ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer, polyamide, polyester, polyvinylchloride, polyvinylidenedichloride, ethylene-carbon monoxide copolymer and terpolymer, polycarbonate, polyether, high impact polystyrene, styrene-acrylonitrile copolymer and acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene terpolymer; and
(iii) 0.005 to 10 weight percent functionalized propylene polymer composition comprising (a) 5 to 95 weight percent, based on the weight of the functionalized composition, propylene-ethylene impact copolymer grafted with maleic anhydride and having a graft to melt flow rate ratio of 0.5 or above, said impact copolymer being a reactor-made intimate mixture of propylene homopolymer and ethylene-propylene copolymer rubber produced in a gas-phase, stirred-bed, multi-stage polymerization process, and (b) 95 to 5 weight percent, based on the weight of the functionalized composition, propylene homopolymer grafted with maleic anhydride.
9. The composite of claim 8 wherein the base resin is a highly crystalline propylene homopolymer having a tacticity index greater than 94% and melt flow rate from 0.5 to 100 g10 min.
10. The composite of claim 9 wherein the dispersed component is a polyamide selected from the group consisting of polytetramethylene adipamide, polyhexamethylene adipamide, polyhexamethylene azelamide, polyhexamethylene sebacamide, polyhexamethylene dodecanoamide, polycaprolactam, polybutyrolactam, polypivalolactam and poly-11-aminoundecanoic acid.
11. The composite of claim 19 wherein the base resin is a highly crystalline propylene homopolymer having a tacticity index greater than 94% and melt flow rate from 0.5 to 100 g10 min.
12. The composite of claim 11 wherein the dispersed component is glass fiber.
13. The composite of claim 11 wherein the dispersed component is a fibrous cellulosic material derived from natural sources.
14. The composite of claim 9 wherein (a) has a molecular weight distribution of 7 or less and contains 20 weight percent or more ethylene-propylene copolymer and is grafted with from 1 to 3.5 weight percent maleic anhydride and (b) is grafted with from 0.75 to 1.5 weight percent maleic anhydride.
15. The composite of claim 14 comprising 50 to 97.49 weight percent polypropylene base resin, 2.5 to 60 weight percent dispersed component and 0.01 to 5 weight percent functionalized propylene polymer composition.
16. The composite of claim 15 wherein the functionalized propylene polymer composition is comprised of 25 to 75 weight percent (a) and 75 to 25 weight percent (b).
17. The composite of claim 16 wherein (a) is grafted with 1.5 to 2.8 weight percent maleic anhydride and the propylene-ethylene impact copolymer has an ethylene content from 5 to 30 weight percent.
18. The composite of claim 17 wherein (b) is grafted with 0.8 to 1.25 weight percent maleic anhydride.
19. A composite comprising:
(i) 30 to 98.995 weight percent polypropylene base resin;
(ii) 1 to 70 weight percent dispersed component which is a filler material selected from the group consisting of inorganic compounds, siliceous materials, cellulosic materials and nanofillers; and
(iii) 0.005 to 10 weight percent functionalized propylene polymer composition comprising (a) 5 to 95 weight percent, based on the weight of the functionalized composition, propylene-ethylene impact copolymer grafted with maleic anhydride and having a graft to melt flow rate ratio of 0.5 or above, said impact copolymer being a reactor-made intimate mixture of propylene homopolymer and ethylene-propylene copolymer rubber produced in a gas-phase, stirred-bed, multi-stage polymerization process and (b) 95 to 5 weight percent, based on the weight of the functionalized composition, propylene homopolymer grafted with maleic anhydride.
20. The composite of claim 11 wherein (a) has a molecular weight distribution of 7 or less and contains 20 weight percent or more ethylene-propylene copolymer and is grafted with from 1 to 3.5 weight percent maleic anhydride and (b) is grafted with from 0.75 to 1.5 weight percent maleic anhydride.
21. The composite of claim 20 comprising 50 to 97.49 weight percent polypropylene base resin, 2.5 to 60 weight percent dispersed component and 0.01 to 5 weight percent functionalized propylene polymer composition.
22. The composite of claim 21 wherein the functionalized propylene polymer composition is comprised of 25 to 75 weight percent (a) and 75 to 25 weight percent (b).
23. The composite of claim 22 wherein (a) is grafted with 1.5 to 2.8 weight percent maleic anhydride and the propylene-ethylene impact copolymer has an ethylene content from 5 to 30 weight percent.
24. The composite of claim 23 wherein (b) is grafted with 0.8 to 1.25 weight percent maleic anhydride.

1. A method for recognizing speech, the method comprising:
recognizing a sequence of words;
processing the sequence of words using word agglomeration that replaces the sequence of words with an associated n-tuple sequence, the n-tuple sequence comprising word n-tuples that are all strings of n consecutive words in the sequence of words, wherein the n-tuple sequence is represented by a vector representation in a semantic space; and
classifying the processed sequence of words as a predetermined command based on the vector representation of the n-tuple sequence in the semantic space.
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing an action corresponding to the predetermined command.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein classifying comprises semantically inferring the predetermined command from the associated word n-tuple sequence.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein classifying comprises semantically inferring the predetermined command from the processed sequence of words.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein semantically inferring comprises determining a correlation between the processed sequence of words and at least one semantic anchor.
6. The method of claim 5, wherein the correlation is a distance between the vector corresponding to the processed sequence of words and a vector corresponding to the at least one semantic anchor.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein semantically inferring further comprises selecting the predetermined command from the semantic anchor vector having the shortest distance.
8. The method of claim 7, wherein the semantic anchor represents a one of a plurality of predetermined commands.
9. The method of claim 5, wherein the at least one semantic anchor is derived from a training data.
10. The method of claim 4, wherein semantically inferring the predetermined command depends on the order of the words in the processed sequence of words.
11. The method of claim 1, wherein the classifying comprises:
generating the vector representation of the processed sequence of words; and
comparing the vector representation to a plurality of semantic anchors, wherein each of the plurality of semantic anchors corresponds to one of a plurality of voice commands.
12. The method of claim 11, wherein the classifying further comprises:
selecting a semantic anchor from the plurality of semantic anchors that is most similar to the vector representation; and
classifying the processed sequence of words as the command that corresponds to the selected semantic anchor.
13. The method of claim 12, wherein the selecting comprises:
for each of the plurality of semantic anchors, identifying the similarity between the vector representation and the semantic anchor by calculating the cosine of the angle between the product of the vector representation and a diagonal matrix of singular values and the product of the semantic anchor and the diagonal matrix of singular values; and
selecting the semantic anchor from the plurality of semantic anchors that corresponds to the largest cosine value as the semantic anchor that is most similar to the vector representation.
14. The method of claim 11, wherein the vector representation is an indication of how frequently each of a plurality of word n-tuples occurs within the processed sequence of words.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein each of the plurality of semantic anchors is an indication of how frequently each of the plurality of word n-tuples occurs with respect to the corresponding command.
16. The method of claim 11, wherein each of the plurality of semantic anchors represents a plurality of different ways of speaking the corresponding command.
17. The method of claim 11, wherein each of the plurality of semantic anchors represents a plurality of different commands having the same words, but in a different order.
18. A machine-readable medium having stored thereon a plurality of instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to recognize a voice command by:
recognizing a sequence of words;
processing the sequence of words using word agglomeration that replaces the sequence of words with an associated n-tuple sequence, the n-tuple sequence comprising word n-tuples that are all strings of n consecutive words in the sequence of words, wherein the n-tuple sequence is represented by a vector representation in a semantic space; and
classifying the processed sequence of words as a predetermined command based on the vector representation of the n-tuple sequence in the semantic space.
19. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the plurality of instructions further cause the processor to perform an action corresponding to the predetermined command.
20. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the instructions for classifying comprises semantically inferring the predetermined command from the associated word n-tuple sequence.
21. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the instructions for semantically inferring comprises determining a correlation between a semantic representation of the associated word n-tuple sequence and at least one semantic anchor.
22. The machine-readable medium of claim 21, wherein the instructions for determining a correlation comprise determining a distance between the vector corresponding to the semantic representation and a vector corresponding to the at least one semantic anchor.
23. The machine-readable medium of claim 22, wherein the instructions for semantically inferring further comprises selecting the predetermined command from the semantic anchor vector having the shortest distance to the vector corresponding to the semantic representation.
24. The machine-readable medium of claim 21, wherein the at least one semantic anchor represents a one of a plurality of predetermined commands.
25. The machine-readable medium of claim 21, wherein the at least one semantic anchor is derived from a training data.
26. The machine-readable medium of claim 21, wherein the performance of the instructions for semantically inferring the predetermined command depends on the order of the words in the processed sequence of words.
27. An apparatus for recognizing a voice command, the apparatus comprising:
a speech recognizer to recognize a sequence of words received as the voice command;
a processor to process the sequence of words using word agglomeration that replaces the sequence of words with an n-tuple sequence, the n-tuple sequence comprising word n-tuples that are all strings of n consecutive words in the sequence of words, wherein the n-tuple sequence is represented by a vector representation in a semantic space; and
a semantic classifier, coupled to the processor, to semantically infer from the representation of the n-tuple sequence in the semantic space which of a plurality of predetermined commands correlate to the voice command.
28. The apparatus of claim 27, further comprising:
an action generator, coupled to the semantic classifier, to use the vector representation to determine an action to be performed.
29. The apparatus of claim 27, wherein the semantic classifier is further to compare the vector representation to a plurality of semantic anchors, wherein each of the plurality of semantic anchors corresponds to a one of the plurality of predetermined commands.
30. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein the semantic classifier is further to identify a semantic anchor from the plurality of semantic anchors that is most similar to the vector representation, and to classify the vector representation as the one of the plurality of predetermined commands that corresponds to the identified semantic anchor.
31. An apparatus for recognizing a voice command, the apparatus comprising:
means for recognizing a sequence of words received as the voice command;
means for processing the sequence of words using word agglomeration that replaces the sequence of words with an n-tuple sequence, the n-tuple sequence comprising word n-tuples that are all strings of n consecutive words in the sequence of words, wherein the n-tuple sequence is represented by a vector representation
means, coupled to the means for processing, for semantically inferring from the vector representation of the n-tuple sequence in the semantic space which of a plurality of predetermined commands correlate to the voice command.
32. The apparatus of claim 31, further comprising means, coupled to the means for semantically inferring, for using the vector representation to determine an action to be performed.
33. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the means for semantically inferring further comprises:
means for comparing the vector representation to a plurality of semantic anchors, wherein each of the plurality of semantic anchors corresponds to one of a plurality of predetermined commands.
34. The apparatus of claim 33, wherein the means for semantically inferring further comprises:
means for identifying a semantic anchor of the plurality of semantic anchors that is most similar to the vector representation; and
means for classifying the vector representation as the one of the plurality of predetermined commands that corresponds to the identified semantic anchor.

The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.

What is claimed is:

1. An elastically stretchable composite sheet comprising an elastic layer, said elastic layer being elastically stretchable at least in one direction, and an inelastic layer of fibers, said inelastic layer being inelastically stretchable in said one direction and bonded to least on one surface of said elastic layer, and at least 80% by weight of said fiber comprising thermoplastic synthetic fiber which contains lubricant of 0.15.0% by weight.
2. The composite sheet according to claim 1, wherein said thermoplastic synthetic fiber is selected from a group including fiber made of polypropylene’s homopolymer, ethylenepropylene copolymer, ethylenepropylenebutene copolymer and fibrous mixture comprising at least two of them.
3. The composite sheet according to claim 1, wherein said elastic layer and said inelastic layer are fused together in bond regions intermittently arranged in said one direction and a length of said fiber extending between each pair of the adjacent bond regions in said one direction is longer than a rectilinear distance between said pair of the adjacent bond regions.
4. The composite sheet according to claim 1, wherein said lubricant is selected from a group including fatty acid amide, fatty acid ester and metallic soap.
5. A process for making an elastically stretchable composite sheet comprising the steps of feeding an elastic web which is elastically stretchable at least in one direction, placing an inelastically stretchable fibrous layer upon at least one surface of said elastic web and intermittently bonding these both webs to each other in said one direction, said process further comprising:
at least 80% by weight of said fiber comprises thermoplastic synthetic fiber containing lubricant of 0.15.0% by weight.
6. The process according to claim 5, wherein said thermoplastic synthetic fiber is selected from a group including fiber made of polypropylene’s homopolymer, ethylenepropylene copolymer, ethylenepropylenebutene copolymer and fibrous mixture comprising at least two of them.
7. The process according to claim 5, further including the steps of stretching said elastic web and said inelastic web bonded together at least by 80% in said one direction and then leaving said webs to contract under a contractile force of said elastic layer.